Time is one thing that we can never have enough of and unfortunately, we can’t make more of it. But we can get better at saving time. Reusing sketches means you’re leveraging the geometry you already have so you don’t have to go back and waste time recreating shapes over and over again. In this video tech tip, we have 5 different ways you can save time by reusing sketches.
>> Click here to learn 5 ways to save time by reusing sketches
Five Time Saving Tricks To Try
- Sketch contours: This enables you to use contours from a sketch for multiple features. When using sketch contours, you are not limited to one sketch per features. An entire sketch or just pieces of it can be used multiple times enabling you to quickly create many features.
- Sketch plane: When editing the sketch plane, you can move your sketches from one plane to another. This is a great trick to know for when you change your mind and decide that a sketch should be on a different face or plane. Simply edit the sketch plane to relocate the sketch instead of recreating it.
- Copy / Paste: If you want to know how to copy a sketch in SOLIDWORKS, this just like you would any other copy / paste function in Windows. Just preselect the sketch then hit copy and then choose the face or plane to locate the copy and then hit paste to add it. Note that this isn’t a linked copy where the dimensions are synced like a derived sketch, this simply adds a nonparametric copy of the sketch.
- Pattern / Mirror: Patterning and mirrors are some of the best ways to save time in SOLIDWORKS. They deserve an entire video tech tip series on its own. In this short video, we share with you how the pattern tool can be used to create a series of holes from just one circle.
- Convert Entities: This is one of the best features for saving time when sketching. It’s a favorite for TriMech Application Engineers. By converting entities, you can quickly create copies of model geometry in the current sketch. It doesn’t have to even be sketch geometry it can be things like model edges or even entire faces.
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